By Crime Historian Laura James, Esquire (c) 2005-18 WELCOME to my study of historic true crime, a literary blog where the chairs rest at the intersection of history, journalism, law, and murder, and the shelves are filled with the finest true crime literature. STEAL FROM THIS LIBRARY AND IT'S PISTOLS AT DAWN.

True crime author Corey Mitchell,47, passed away suddenly in late October. News accounts say he died of a heart attack.

Mitchell studied law but did not practice; instead, he wrote seven true crime books, and a few years ago he was the editor of a well regarded if short-lived and now sadly defunct online true crime collaborative. (Read my initial piece on In Cold Blog here). Mitchell's titles are Evil Eyes,Pure Murder, Dead and Buried, Murdered Innocents, Strangler, and Savage Son, along with his first and, he told me, most successful book, 2001's Hollywood Death Scenes.

News of his death had me re-reading his old blog; some of the comments he left on Clews (here, here, here, and here); notes we exchanged about the true crime genre, including my favorite posted here; his Facebook page; and an interview I found online. Lately his interests had turned toward his other favorite subjects in music and horror. I will always remember him for one book in particular that I was not alone in being glad he wrote. The book Evil Eyes concerned prolific serial killer Coral Eugene Watts. Evil Eyes is the only book written about Watts, who is, to my beloved Detroit, what Ted Bundy is to Seattle (still much discussed here). True crime fans will remember him for these seven contributions to the genre, gratefully received by those of us who shared and appreciated his interests.

(The Borowitz Collection is the greatest private true crime library ever amassed. This year the current owner, Kent State University, geared up to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the donation of the entire ensemble. In addition to all kinds of special events, the university put together a catalogue for a special exhibit of the gems of the collection. They asked me to write an introduction for the catalogue, which pleased me to no end, so this is what I came up with to introduce Albert Borowitz and his books.)

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Thanks to the lawmakers and the industry of our criminal courts and mass printers, more or less careful records of murder and mayhem and their aftermath have been kept for ages. But true crime publications tend to be as short-lived as their subjects. Recognizing their value, Albert Borowitz, one of the great true crime historians and connoisseurs of this age, spent decades of his life amassing the largest known private library in the theme, a collection of true crime books exceeding ten thousand volumes, some going back to the 1600s. In doing so, the multilingual American lawyer managed to save generations of stories from several continents, rescuing many books and hundreds of old crime broadsides from extinction, with no other copies left in existence. Now ensconced at Kent State University , it is an awesome trove for researchers and a gift to true crime mavens.

One must envy the energy and passion of anyone who can collect ten thousand of anything, let alone these stories. True crime certainly has its critics. Everyone has personal preferences. And there are fads and poor examples in every genre. But what elevates this particular ensemble is Borowitz's impeccable taste. There’s not a lot on the professional criminal class (the Mafia, for example) because their motives are simple, brutish, and uninteresting. There’s not all that much on modern serial killers, either (compared to the prodigious output of such stories in the last few decades). Borowitz thinks serial sex killers are “boring.” Now that we have them figured out, we know their motives and patterns of conduct; there is no mystery to examine, no unanswered question left, and Borowitz tells us our time is better spent elsewhere.

The Borowitz collection is also exceptional for its depth of legal scholarship. For it is in essence a law library, part of a long tradition among attorneys and judges of collecting case studies (and handsome books). As thankful members of an organized and lawful society, attorneys in particular are compelled by principles of stare decisis to know the past, which forms our common law. In that sense, studying criminal cases is for some of us a moral and legal imperative. That it can also be an enjoyable process should go without saying.

These true crime stories do more, though. They also feed a common hunger for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This ancient oath has been taken over this or that holy book for more than two thousand years. Today, the oath (or affirmation, for secularists) still carries a threat of imprisonment, because the truth is so valuable. Truth means reliability, certainty. And when we get to the truth, we can answer hard questions. Criminal law teems with characters who have been captured, as in amber, by sworn testimony. For the psychologists and sociologists (armchair and otherwise), true cases are rife with answers to the riddles of human conduct and questions of responding to it. Some of us purists even snub fiction and all the figments of crime novelists. Made-up characters and fancied circumstances contrived by a single mind cannot begin to rival the complexity of human conduct. Truth is indeed stranger.

It is often when an elusive truth should be knowable -- when the evidence is abundant, the record extensive -- that we are most driven to find an answer, and that is reflected in this collection. As true crime fans know, reading one book can draw you more deeply into the literature until you've read all there is to read about a particularly mesmerizing matter and you can sit back, sated, and contemplate the question at hand knowing you've learned all there is to learn of it. As Borowitz himself has said, "in the study of crime, as in life, the puzzle goes on forever." We see Borowitz's research trails in these shelves, share some of his fascinations, and recognize that he has dug deeper and found more in every instance.

Included in his collection are more than 250 volumes on the eternal mystery of Jack the Ripper. Lizzie Borden takes up an entire shelf with more than forty titles to her name. Jesse James has sixty books, going back to 1880. The Praslin murder, a worldwide sensation in 1847, is here represented by twelve extremely rare and quite valuable books in both English and French. Other priceless, one-of-a-kind, historically significant treasures are too many to list.

The collection has continued to grow in a quarter century by acquisition and donation. Beyond the bookshelves are cultural artifacts worthy of the time of scholars as well as the morbidly curious. They include such items as a hangman's hood, a poison ring, Staffordshire figurines of the murderous Mr. and Mrs. Manning, and the private papers of author Leo Damore, the reporter who broke the story of Chappaquiddick. One can take such things as the sign of a healthy culture; totalitarian states are quick to suppress true crime stories and the paraphernalia that often accompanies them. Those of us who know better celebrate the literature of true crime, which has time and again proven its value those of us who actually recognize and embrace it as the parent of innumerable works of art.

Borowitz will continue to earn accolades from his fellow enthusiasts long into the future not only for his own remarkable achievements in the genre but for his generosity in sharing his collection with the public. To think that a single person acquired all these books, read them all, and indexed them all in Blood & Ink is to know that Albert Borowitz is the legal guardian genius of the genre, and the Borowitz Collection is in and of itself a work of art.

The co-author of the true crime phenomenon Helter Skelter has passed. Curt Gentry [Wiki], who penned the book with Vincent Bugliosi, died of apparent natural causes at the age of 83 in mid-July.

The book is the favorite of many a fan of the genre. Some have admitted on CLEWS to devouring this very long book in as little as three days. It was Gentry's engrossing narrative drive (he was an experienced journalist) that made it such a page-turner. Helter Skelter easily made its way onto my own Top 10 list and holds up to the scrutiny of time as an oustanding example of the form.

I've long been a fan of the late true crime author [here's her Wiki page], and in a visit this month to the venerable John King Book Store in my lovely Detroit, I found a $1 copy of The Overbury Affair, which I gobbled up in 2 days. So I was happy to get this note from a fellow deFord-phile --

Hi Laura!!

I think your blog is AWESOME!!

You said for a desert island you would like "something by Miriam Allen deFord". Can you recommend some things? I already have "Murderers Sane and Mad" and "The Overbury Affair". Any other suggestions?

Love your site,

Ellen

Well? So please do drop us a comment if you know of any more splendid true crime gems by this author.

P.S. to the many true crime devotees who have written to me lately, thank you and forgive me for being behind on my correspondence. More Clews are coming soon :)

Welcome to the annual true crime book club link-a-thon! I am dusting off my blog again to share the plethora of links my faithful correspondents have sent me and that I've selfishly hoarded hitherto. If you like stories of history, journalism, law, and murder, in other words the true crime genre, easily the best invention to come out of the sixteenth century [sic - for the Truman Capote zealots], below are stories and books in the theme. If you have any links, books, or reviews to share, please do!

You're also not the only otherwise sane person to admit to liking true crime books. Governor Susana Martinez recently plugged the genre for schoolchildren.

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The Wall Street Journal offers nice coverage of our favorite literary genre. In its pages true crime gets its due. Lately it's offered some good links in the theme. Author Daniel Stashower (whose book got a nice nod from the N.Y. Times) got hooked on true crime at thirteen. The WSJ also likedMidnight in Peking by Paul French.

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Over the last few months I've followed a civil suit in Washington state. Author Ann Rule took the local newspaper, the Seattle Weekly, to task with a libel suit that I for one thought appeared to be well founded. Though I don't know the niceties of that state's laws, I've handled a few libel cases; she looked to me to have a case. Surprisingly, her case got thrown out. More. And more. Even more. So the queen of the genre is moving on -- here's an Ann Rule interview about her next book on Russel Douglas.

( Note: CLEWS is pleased to dust the curtains 'round here and present the latest true crime title from our reigning master of true crime, Harold Schechter, who returns us to the trove of shocking murder stories from New York for his tenth contribution to our favorite genre. Enjoy what is sure to be a bestseller and another feather in the cap of the master.)

Title: The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, The Model, and the Murder that Shook The Nation

As part of The Mad Sculptor (Of True Crime) Blog Tour, Harold will answer questions about the book, his writing process, and the MADNESS in his topics of study as a preeminent true crime writer: murderers and the media!

Book Synopsis

Beekman Place, once one of the most exclusive addresses in Manhattan, had a curious way of making it into the tabloids in the 1930s: "SKYSCRAPER SLAYER," "BEAUTY SLAIN IN BATHTUB" read the headlines. On Easter Sunday in 1937, the discovery of a grisly triple homicide at Beekman Place would rock the neighborhood yet again—and enthrall the nation. The young man who committed the murders would come to be known in the annals of American crime as the Mad Sculptor.

Caught up in the Easter Sunday slayings was a bizarre and sensationalistic cast of characters, seemingly cooked up in a tabloid editor’s overheated imagination. The charismatic perpetrator, Roger Irwin, was a brilliant young sculptor who had studied with some of the masters of the era. But with his genius also came a deeply disturbed psyche; Irwin was obsessed with sexual self-mutilation and was frequently overcome by outbursts of violent rage.

Irwin’s primary victim, Veronica Gedeon, was a figure from the world of pulp fantasy—a stunning photographer's model whose scandalous seminude pinups would titillate the public for weeks after her death. Irwin’s defense attorney, Samuel Leibowitz, was a courtroom celebrity with an unmatched record of acquittals and clients ranging from Al Capone to the Scottsboro Boys. And Dr. Fredric Wertham, psychiatrist and forensic scientist, befriended Irwin years before the murders and had predicted them in a public lecture months before the crime.

Based on extensive research and archival records, The Mad Sculptor recounts the chilling story of the Easter Sunday murders—a case that sparked a nationwide manhunt and endures as one of the most engrossing American crime dramas of the twentieth century. Harold Schechter’s masterful prose evokes the faded glory of post-depression New York and the singular madness of a brilliant mind turned against itself. It will keep you riveted until the very last page.

About the Author

Harold Schechter is an American true crime writer who specializes in serial killers. He attended the State University of New York in Buffalo where his PhD director was Leslie Fiedler. He is professor of American literature and popular culture at Queens College of the City University of New York.Schechter is married to poet Kimiko Hahn. He has two daughters from a previous marriage: the writer Lauren Oliver and professor of philosophy Elizabeth Schechter.

QUESTION: The Mad Sculptor takes place in an historic area of New York, as do many of your other titles. How has living in New York influenced your writing? Is the greatest city in the world also the breeding ground for murder and mayhem?

Answer from Harold:

Not at all. In fact, most of the subjects I've written about have come from elsewhere: Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois, Boston, San Francisco. Sadly, serial murder is a universal phenomenon, found in all times and places.

Randy Dotinga of the Christian Science Monitor considered his most very favorite historical true crime titles ever and came up with this list of the top five:

1. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

2. For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb and the Murder That Shocked Chicago by Simon Baatz

3. Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin by Hampton Sides

4. Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz

5. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale

Now there's a solid list. Larson's is the book that introduced many of my generation to historical true crime. I did have a hiccup at a couple of them, though. I reviewed #4 for The Hatchet and Lizzie herself would've been proud of the hatchet job I gave it. And although the author of #5 made me mad, a lot of true crime devotees and professional reviewers loved the book.

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'A murder mystery from 178 years ago' - CNN picked up the story of two brothers who took their grandfather's old ghost stories seriously ---- and discovered a mass grave in Pennsylvania.

Timesfreude - If schadenfreude means taking pleasure in the pain of others, then I am all a-freude with my other fellow Times haters at the very latest Manhattan flapdoodle. Here's a set of links from Slate http://www.slate.com/id/2265910/ if you too enjoy nurturing a New York grudge.

The murderer at issue is Ohio State University Professor James Snook. He distinguishes himself in the pantheon of mistress-killers by boasting an Olympic gold medal. He is the only recipient of same to be executed for murder.

Professor Snook is a classic character, the lecherous professor. As his own Dean would later say of him, he was "a delinquent who for many years had carried the title of full professor in a great university. Under the academic cloak, he carried on affairs so secretly and skillfully that not even his most intimate associates discovered them...." (Read: psychopath.)

The exceptionally brutal manner in which he killed his last young mistress is shocking even to the jaded 21st-century student of crime. No less scandalous is the admitted killer's testimony on the witness stand that in a phrase could be called the "rough sex defense." In other words, the killer himself used his testimony to savage his victim's reputation.

Needless to say this case in its day sold some newspapers and inspired some impressive allocution from the trial lawyers.

Author Franklin very much impressed me with her award-winning book The Good-Bye Door about Anna Marie Hahn, which also so happens to be the all-time best-selling book on this site. Kudos to the author for finding another fascinating story from the annals of Buckeye history.

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And some links recommended by our fellow aficionados of true crime ....

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.--Emerson

I once felt bad about the size of the pile of books on my nightstand, but now I am reconciled and take comfort in the fact that I will never run out of good true crime books to read and review. When I die, I'll have a half-dozen sitting there. In the good long meantime...at least I'll never have to resort to reading the fiction books that Simon & Schuster keeps sending me over my protest. Up next are new true murder stories by Diana Britt Franklin and Harold Schechter. Here are more recommended books and links.

Or that could be the motto of true crime writers who can't resist cracking up, even though.

So I received a note from a true crime author and lecturer with an interesting genre question.

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Dear Laura:

The Missouri Writers' Guild has asked me to give a talk in April of 2011 at a breakout session. The person organizing it wants me to talk about "Writing True Crime With Humor."

I plan to talk about my book, and I plan to talk about yours. I am going to re-read Jimmy Breslin's The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. Can you think of other true crime books that used a great deal of humor? Please give it some thought and let me know what you come up with. I've got time to prepare and do this right.

NewspaperArchiveMy most very favorite site on the internet. Millions of digitized, text-searchable newspapers from across the U.S. and the world. If my computer somehow froze up and I had access to only one website, this would be it.

Paper of Record Another pay-to-play website that features searchable historic newspapers. Canada is particularly well represented in its collection.